Shifting Notions of Life and the Illusion of Choice: Neoliberalism or Neofascism in Italy?

I argue that contemporary Italy and Europe is in state of “interregnum,” in between two different epochs (an age of industrialization and one of digitalization), and that this “non-event” impacts the ways in which individuals perceive themselves and Otherize. I argue such a period entails a certain “disorientation,” or what Gramsci called “morbid symptoms (Gramsci 2009).” Drawing on a database of certain keywords taken from Italian newspapers over the span of 20 years (2000- 2020), I show how the notion of crisis gets played out by state actors and media corporations as a narrative to “orient” the population.